Week 5

This summer is quickly approaching its end! My first week into July has been filled with a lot of new people and experiences, and A LOT of sweat.

At this point, I would say I am fairly acclimated to my life here. I have gotten myself into a daily routine consisting of going to my internship, taking walks around the neighborhood, and often taking the metro to Las Ramblas or the Gothic Area to enjoy a meal or just to enjoy people watching. Also, there is no better feeling than having a tourist ask me for directions in Spanish- I’m basically a local right?!

Lately, I have noticed that I go back and forth about my feelings of only being here for a couple more weeks. It pains me to think that after all of this I have to return to the states to my regular, fast-paced life and wait to start my last year of college (extremely bitter-sweet). Then other times I get extremely excited to return home to the life that I am use to and the life that I love. I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am to feel the DRY Colorado weather and how excited I am to have free drinking water and air conditioning. However, at this point those are the only things that I really miss, and they are all very small things I can do without when I really think about it.

As for Barcelona, I have really grown to love all the things that make this city what it is, even all the negative parts about it. I hope that one day, sooner rather than later, I can return to this amazing place. One thing I am sure about is that nothing will compare to my time spent here.

One of the main conflicts that I have struggled with in the past week is the issue of getting myself to do things. I feel that if I am not consistently doing something new every day I feel as if it is almost a waste of a day. I am not sure why I feel like this considering I’ve been doing all the things I want to do at a normal pace. I am thinking that this might be due to the fact that I do not want to look back on my time here and think that I could have done more or should have done certain things. The more I think this, the more I think, it is really OKAY. I need to focus on taking things day by day and beat myself up for not being out 24/7.

Even as I read back on this post, I see many things I should improve on. First, I should not be so focused on the things I am going to miss considering I am still here! Second, I could really put in more effort into interacting with new people as I have found so much joy in meeting other international students in my program and seeing how their time here has impacted them so far. I am greatly looking forward to my next few weeks here and I am determined to make the best of my time here while it lasts. There is so much to do and so much to see, and I cannot wait to see what these last few weeks have in store for me!